How do you make peace with throwing food away?
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I don't throw food away unless it's inedible. I just don't make more food than I need.0
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I don't throw much away at all. I only put what I will eat in my plate or when I cook I only make enough for one serving. I don't make huge portions because I'd rather save calories for a snack later if needed...
So I guess I don't really have that problem. I mean, maybe occasionally I could leave some veggies in my plate, but really, 20 extra calories of veggies could keep me full for an extra 30 minutes, so I fail to see the problem with that.
And if there's 200g of chicken left and I only want 150g, it's not a huge deal at all... I'll just have 50g of chicken in a taco or something with some beans later.0 -
Queenmunchy wrote: »I usually repurpose my leftovers. Make them into soup, burritos, or anything I can freeze easily in a single portion for another day.
Another vote for this. Little bits go well in scrambled eggs or soup. I also compost.
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turquoisefish wrote: »I often eat more food than I want or need in a sitting. I will be noticeably full and satisfied, but there's still some food left and I always feel so guilty throwing food away, so I'll eat just that little bit more, but then end up very uncomfortable (and eating unnecessary calories). What I have left and end up eating isn't enough to make a portion to eat another time, if it were, fine, I have no problems with leftovers. How can I learn to be at peace with throwing food away. I'm the anti hoarder and love to throw pretty much everything else away with no problem. How can I overcome this issue? Anyone deal with this?
Restaurant entrees are consistently double what I need. As soon as the food comes I cut it in half and plan to bring half home. Otherwise, I will keep going and eat 3/4 of an entree, and will be uncomfortably full shortly thereafter.
Another benefit to bringing half home is that I can then weigh it and get a more accurate tally of what I ate.
When B and I have dinner before a movie, we split an entree and salad so that there are no leftovers.
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...you guys all have big enough portions to have leftovers from? Just cook or order less!
Truly, I think that is your solution right there! I know how much I can eat and I know how much my partner can eat. That I cook, not a morsel more. If it turns out not to be enough, there are lots of snacks in our home to top off our caloric intake for the day. In a restaurant, we have our main course, and dessert if we can fit it in.0 -
Faithful_Chosen wrote: »...you guys all have big enough portions to have leftovers from? Just cook or order less!
Truly, I think that is your solution right there! I know how much I can eat and I know how much my partner can eat. That I cook, not a morsel more. If it turns out not to be enough, there are lots of snacks in our home to top off our caloric intake for the day. In a restaurant, we have our main course, and dessert if we can fit it in.
Basically you order an item from the restaurant menu and it comes out double what you need. You're not gonna micromanage the chef while you order, saying cook exactly 6oz of steak or chicken etc. If you want that much control, you pretty much have to cook it yourself.
I buy my lunches a lot, and even when asking for a small serving of fries, it's still a lot. I don't love throwing out like half of it before settling down to eat, but I want the damn fries, and like 47Jacqueline said, I'd rather throw out the food than be fat
My problem with the extremely sensible suggestion of keeping it for later is ill probably eat it along with whatever else I'm supposed to consume the rest of the day.
As for making peace with trashing food that's not even enough to be part of a portion - the excess isn't doing the world any more good sat on my heine than it would in the trash can, so
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I must be weird, I can't remember ever having too much food at the restaurant ever since I started this... but I guess I don't order high calorie stuff anyway.0
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this is so great.OsricTheKnight wrote: »"Trash that fat"
If I offered you a deal where you could safely and painlessly dump 1 lb of fat in the garbage each day, would you feel guilty for wasting it?
That's all the food is going to be. So just "trash that fat!"
This logic brought to you from some diet book that I can't even remember the title of, but it stuck with me.
Osric
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i don't throw food away...i put appropriate and measured portions on my plate and i eat it. unless i'm making a stew or casserole or something, i don't really have leftovers...i make pretty much exactly what my wife and I will eat. as for stews and casseroles, I know what appropriate portions are...i like taking leftovers for lunch and/or will freeze them.
there's absolutely no reason to throw away food and it's very wasteful...and expensive.0 -
drivenbonkers wrote: »Compost, or get some pets that can eat the leftover food. Chickens can eat about everything.
YES! I keep 3 laying hens, and they LOVE leftovers.
I give them everything/anything except chicken, (meat or broth) somehow feeding chickens chicken meat is just wrong!
They love warmed up leftover soup or stew in the winter.
Mine love oatmeal in the winter.0 -
I must be weird, I can't remember ever having too much food at the restaurant ever since I started this... but I guess I don't order high calorie stuff anyway.
You're right, it totally depends on what you order. I don't get out to sit down restaurants much, and can all but guarantee I ain't ordering the lean chicken breast, fish, or broccoli. These are home staples that I can easily make myself, so I'm more interested in things like steak, fall off the bone BBQ meats, ribs, Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, that sort of thing. If I know my fellow diners well enough, we'll usually wind up splitting things. Otherwise I'll for sure have more food than I alone can or want to consume, since most entrees come with one or two sides
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I try not to waste food. I try not to make too much and I try to use any leftovers. But eating extra food that I don't need is not less wasteful than composting it. I wasted that food when I bought it or cooked it, not when I threw it in my compost bucket. That's the way I look at it anyway. Also, be sure you aren't rationalising. I'm not saying you are, but I know I might be when I'm taking that extra yummy morsel and saying 'well I don't want to waste it'. Yum yum.0
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I cook at home for myself and husband, and I know how much we'll eat, but my two younger girls on the other hand, it totally just depends on the day with them. They're naturally intuitive eaters right, so they just stop eating when they're full like we're all supposed to, so sometimes I end up with more leftovers than I planned for. And it's more than one serving, but not two, so I put it all into one tupperware, bring it to work for lunch, then eat it all bc I feel guilty throwing it away. I think the poster that said give up feeling guilty, is the thing I've got to work on. Thanks for all the great suggestions though!0
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turquoisefish wrote: »I cook at home for myself and husband, and I know how much we'll eat, but my two younger girls on the other hand, it totally just depends on the day with them. They're naturally intuitive eaters right, so they just stop eating when they're full like we're all supposed to, so sometimes I end up with more leftovers than I planned for. And it's more than one serving, but not two, so I put it all into one tupperware, bring it to work for lunch, then eat it all bc I feel guilty throwing it away. I think the poster that said give up feeling guilty, is the thing I've got to work on. Thanks for all the great suggestions though!
Portion the left overs into single servings. Put some into the freezer, and leave at least one out for lunch in the next few days. If you want to eat more than a serving for lunch, then portion it that way, just figure it into your daily calories.0 -
Make your portion smaller or half it before you eat and save for a meal later. You will get to know if a portion is too big this way. And you don't waste anything. Also try a smaller plate.0
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turquoisefish wrote: »I often eat more food than I want or need in a sitting. I will be noticeably full and satisfied, but there's still some food left and I always feel so guilty throwing food away, so I'll eat just that little bit more, but then end up very uncomfortable (and eating unnecessary calories). What I have left and end up eating isn't enough to make a portion to eat another time, if it were, fine, I have no problems with leftovers. How can I learn to be at peace with throwing food away. I'm the anti hoarder and love to throw pretty much everything else away with no problem. How can I overcome this issue? Anyone deal with this?
I always keep leftovers. When I was little I wasn't allowed to leave the dinner table until I'd eaten everything, even if it meant falling asleep in my food and eating it at midnight. What I do now with unwanted leftovers (is there even such a thing?) Is gather them up in a to go box, along with any unwanted leftovers from my friends, and bring them home to my dog. I know someone else who takes leftovers home to put outside for a couple federal cats. I never throw leftovers away if there is someway to feed the circle of life.
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I want to pile on to all those suggesting "smaller portions". That's definitely important too. I'm afraid I can't remember the source, but an experiment was done where people were fed soup from bowls that were bottomless - they secretly had a nozzle feeding more soup very slowly into the bottom of the bowl so that you'd make progress as you ate but you'd be eating a lot more than it looked like.
They found that basically all subjects ate dramatically more soup from these bowls than they'd ever choose to eat from non-trick bowls.
So there is definitely some evidence behind a smaller plate -> smaller intake.
Osric0 -
I must be weird, I can't remember ever having too much food at the restaurant ever since I started this... but I guess I don't order high calorie stuff anyway.
You're right, it totally depends on what you order. I don't get out to sit down restaurants much, and can all but guarantee I ain't ordering the lean chicken breast, fish, or broccoli. These are home staples that I can easily make myself, so I'm more interested in things like steak, fall off the bone BBQ meats, ribs, Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, that sort of thing. If I know my fellow diners well enough, we'll usually wind up splitting things. Otherwise I'll for sure have more food than I alone can or want to consume, since most entrees come with one or two sides
Right, I don't see any point in ordering food at restaurants that I can easily make at home.
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I rarely waste food. Even if it's just two little chunks of potato, I can eat them the next morning with my eggs. Chicken can be shredded into a bowl of veggies, etc.
It might be easier for people who eat lots of little meals than it is for those who do two or three big ones. It's much easier to make a meal out of little bits of food when you eat six meals.
Eating out is different. I just let them throw out the extra. I eat out so rarely, though.0 -
No starving kid in India is going to be hungry because I throw food out.
But I avoid waste by planning my menu ahead of time. That way I control the calories and I don't prepare more than I want. If I eat out I either plan for the whole meal or I get a takeout box when they bring the food and immediately put the extra amount in the box so I won't be tempted to eat it.0 -
Eating food I don't need and getting fat doesn't serve a useful purpose and in fact hurts me. It is no less wasteful than tossing it.0
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OsricTheKnight wrote: »"Trash that fat"
If I offered you a deal where you could safely and painlessly dump 1 lb of fat in the garbage each day, would you feel guilty for wasting it?
That's all the food is going to be. So just "trash that fat!"
This logic brought to you from some diet book that I can't even remember the title of, but it stuck with me.
Osric
This.
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I have that problem! Now that I weigh everything out not so much, but I still find myself having to physically restrain myself from eating my daughter's leftovers. She might leave say half an egg on toast on her plate and I have this overwhelming NEED to eat it instead of throw it out.
But I have been getting better. I don't eat her leftovers as much now.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »i don't throw food away...i put appropriate and measured portions on my plate and i eat it. unless i'm making a stew or casserole or something, i don't really have leftovers...i make pretty much exactly what my wife and I will eat. as for stews and casseroles, I know what appropriate portions are...i like taking leftovers for lunch and/or will freeze them.
there's absolutely no reason to throw away food and it's very wasteful...and expensive.
Yes!!!!
Also, if something gets to a point of expiration date I would rather donate it than toss it, someone could use it!
If I am eating in a cafeteria that I know will give me more than what Id pre-planned, I would also pre-plan on bringing a container to store the leftovers in.
I know how much Im able to eat, so I would rather give myself less and get more than too much.
I don't have any qualms about saving a small portion...I know Im going to eat again
If Im making something that exceeds what I need & don't/cant freeze it, I will offer some to a friend/neighbor or family member, its a win/win!
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They're called leftovers for a reason. Pack it and eat it later.
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Feed it to your dog/chickens, make a bigger amount and divide it up before you sit down to eat, then add any left-overs to whats already in the fridge, or make less and get full on tea/coffee/water. It sounds like you are dishing yourself up too much food.0
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While wasting food isn't good, don't feel guilted into eating more than you want/need. This can especially be hard on beginners to portion control. People of course fall into the "starving children in Africa" cycle. Eating it isn't going to do you any good. A lot of great suggestions on what to do with leftovers have been offered here, I would definitely jot down a few.0
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Have you tried not eating an entree with the meal when you go out? Just a thought, since quite a few people were talking about entrees.
Me, I never order an entree. A main is usually more than enough for me (I often leave some of that on the plate for the trash). Unless I order an entree to have as a main.0 -
I have a weird little hobby. I feed it to my pet worms! Their castings feed my vegetable patch. I eat the veggies. Nature at its best!0
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Excess food in you gets turned to waste anyway - in the form of fat! You're not saving African children's lives by eating too much.. If you're worried about it serve yourself half the amount you normally would, eat it, wait 20 minutes then have a second small portion if you're still hungry. Alternatively, wrap it up and put it in the fridge for later when you're hungry. I often do that because I make a delicious meal that's WAY too big and I just have the rest as a snack later or the next day.0
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